That's sound advice, according to Delores Conway, director of the Casden Real Estate Economics Forecast at the University of Southern California. Conway also notes that most real estate agents specialize in different markets. So it behooves the seller or buyer to interview a few different agents to understand where they're coming from.
"Like finding a doctor, you want a person with the right skill level," she said.
When Linda Kim and her husband sold a house in Highland several years ago, the stay-at-home mom knew right away that one of two agents had the right skill level. "This one agent seemed like she was looking out for her own interests," Kim said. The tip-off: The agent offered to personally buy Kim's house at a lower price.
But the other agent got it right. "We trusted her immediately. And we felt like she was going to fight for us," said Kim, speaking of Eileen Valenti, real estate agent with Coldwell Banker Kivett-Teeters in Highland.
Turns out Valenti has nearly three decades of experience, a selling point when a frenzied market is supposedly attracting a wave of short-timers. "There are a lot of unscrupulous people in the business because it's hot. And there are a lot of offices that have cropped up," Valenti said. "As soon as the business slows down they will be pulling up their stakes."
Randy Smith, president of Century 21 Sparrow-Shoreline in Long Beach, agrees with Valenti. "Sellers probably want to find an agent who understands how to market a home in a down market. We're going to start finding people in this business who don't understand how to function in a normal market. The prudent seller should be asking an agent if they were in the business back in the first half of the 1990s or the mid-1980s."